Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers : : Emerging from the Long Shadow of Farm Labor / / Barbara Wells.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Wells, Barbara,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2013]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Families in Focus
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (220 p.) :; 10 photographs, 1 map, 1 table

In Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers, Barbara Wells examines the work and family lives of Mexican American women in a community near the U.S.-Mexican border in California's Imperial County. Decades earlier, their Mexican parents and grandparents had made the momentous decision to migrate to the United States as farmworkers. This book explores how that decision has worked out for these second- and third-generation Mexican Americans. Wells provides stories of the struggles, triumphs, and everyday experiences of these women. She analyzes their narratives on a broad canvas that includes the social structures that create the barriers, constraints, and opportunities that have shaped their lives. The women have constructed far more settled lives than the immigrant generation that followed the crops, but many struggle to provide adequately for their families. These women aspire to achieve the middle-class lives of the American Dream. But upward mobility is an elusive goal. The realities of life in a rural, agricultural border community strictly limit social mobility for these descendants of immigrant farm laborers. Reliance on family networks is a vital strategy for meeting the economic challenges they encounter. Wells illustrates clearly the ways in which the "long shadow" of farm work continues to permeate the lives and prospects of these women and their families.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Structure of Agriculture and the Organization of Farm Labor -- 2. Farmworker Origins -- 3. Life in a Border Community -- 4. Negotiating Work and Family -- 5. The Legacy of Farm Labor -- 6. Surviving Now and Building a Better Life for Later -- 7. Why Do They Stay? -- Conclusion -- Methodological Appendix -- Notes -- References -- Index -- About the Author